Black Stories
by Thermonuclear Cerberus
Summary: An evil book, a man veiled in black, and the most terrifying experience the Titans will ever have. Rated M for extreme descriptions of blood and projectile vomit...I'm serious.


Prologue

He flipped through the pages at a rapid pace. A smile steadily crept across his face as he turned the pages of the nightmarish looking book. He snapped it shut and locked the clasp back over the front. It was exactly what he was looking for, and who would have thought such a tome would be in the possession of a child.

He ran his hand delicately over its face. Admiring the sheer horrific look of it. Bound in human skin, the words upon its pages written in blood. It is said that the book is possessed, and that the horrifying face on the front is that of the spirit that resides in it, the mouth forever depicting the image of a wailing scream, and the shape of the eyes were so full of sorrow. He opened the left side of his duster and placed it inside of a large pocket. In a puff of smoke he was gone. Leaving no trace of his existence behind.

* * *

"It's Gone!" The voice, mixed with anger, shock, and horror could be heard all through out the tower. Cyborg, who was working on his car, bent the length of the new muffler he was putting on. Starfire, who was putting the finishing touches on her version of a cake, slipped with the frosting and ended up coating Robin's face who was helping her. Beast Boy, who was actually cleaning up his room for once, tripped and fell face first in to a pile of dirty clothes from which you could actually see the stink rise from. He pushed himself up and removed a particularly going shirt from his face.

"What her problem now?" He sighed to himself as he stood up and walked out to the main room.

Raven came gliding out of the dark hallway leading to their rooms. Robin and star fire both rushed toward her. "Raven, what's wrong?" Robin asked with great concern. It was a bad thing if Raven was upset, even worse if her anger got the best of her.

"Yes friend, tell us what is the matter." Star fire flew forward and turned in mid air to land on her feet as she set herself down.

"A book." Raven answered. "A very powerful one." She stood there gazing at the floor in anger so as not to make the others think she was blaming them.

"That narrows it down to about your entire collection." Beast Boy had just come in after cleaning off his face. "Ohh, cake!" He instantly ran over to the bar of the kitchen and cut himself a slice and rejoined the group. He took a bite and practically melted. Starfire's culinary skills were getting better every day.

"A necromancers spell book. An extremely dangerous one called _el libro de almas perdidas_" Raven had a look of both anger and concern in her eyes, she hardly ever showed any emotion. Robin shifted slightly; if Raven gave any form of emotion to anything like this it meant it was defiantly bad.

"The book of lost souls." He said, both repeating her and translating the name. His voice trailed off nere the end. He placed his chin between his thumb and forefingers to think for a moment.

"It's a necromancers book?" Beast Boy asked with a full mouth, coating the floor slightly with chewed up bits of pink and white. "Like the Necronamicon?" Images of a chainsaw armed Bruce Campbell with a twelve gage in his other hand and a scantly clad woman clinging to his legs filled BBs mind. "Hail to the king baby." He whispered to himself as he hugged the air, bending over and making kissing faces. Starfire giggled, the other two just stared before raven broke the weird silence brought on by the weird moment

"No. And contrary to what most believe, the Necronomicon is nothing more than a history book." Beast Boy obviously wasn't listening, as he started acting out scenes from Evil Dead. They decided to just ignore him and go on with what Raven had to say.

"So, this book of lost souls, how dangerous is it?" Robin asked, raising a brow?

"Very, it contains incantations for summoning demons, and it even list the ingredients needed to make one." Raven sounded hesitant to say the last bit. When she did, Robin's eyes went wide, Starfire had clapped a hand over her mouth, and Beast Boy froze in the mid scene. "You can't be serious?" he asked with astonishment. She looked at him with a glare that forced him to shrink back "I have never joked about anything in my life, and I do not plan on starting now."

"Calm down Raven. It does sound a bit farfetched. Creating a demon?" Robin followed her as she walked into what they had made their living room.

"It can do more than that." Raven sat down on the floor in her meditative position. She was trying to calm herself down. She began to chant her usual mantra. This was definitely serious if Raven was this upset over it. "Summon spirits from another world, to give life to the dead. It gives the spell caster power over what ever they conjure." She closed her eyes again and began chanting. "Azirath Metrion Zinthos…" she let out another long sigh. Cyborg had joined the group after this.

"Whats going on? You guys holding a séance?" He was busy wiping his hand with a cloth that was covered in grease. He set the rag down on the counter and walked over to join them; standing next to star fire he looked down at Raven

"Raven has just informed us of a most dangerous spell book that has been taken from her collection without her previous knowledge." Starfire said, looking from Raven, to Cyborg, and then back. Raven stood up and puller her clock over her thin figure and began walking toward the hall leading down to the exit.

"Hold on just a second Raven." Robin ran after her and put a hand on her shoulder "It couldn't have been removed from the tower, the alarms would have gone off if any one had broken in to steal it." She looked up at him and thought for a moment.

"Maybe," she said, her voice trailing off slightly. "But maybe not. This book…is so full of evil any one can feel its dark presence. I can't feel anything like it in the tower, so I know its not here." Robin let go of her and she started down the hall once more. "We need to look for it. It's very dangerous in any ones hands. No good can come of it. If some one does plan on using it, we should have some time to find them before they do. It's written in six different languages, all very old, some forgotten. It would take a long time to translate, even if some one knew the languages."

Robin crossed his arms He didn't like the sound of any of it. It was rightfully unsettling. He nodded to her. "Do you know where to start looking?" She shook her head. Robin looked at her funny. She knew better than to go any where without any sort of clues, they all did.

Just when he was about to say something the warning lights went off. A mad buzzing echoed through out the tower. Cyborg was already at the control station and had pulled up a map of the cities industrial district. "Chemical warehouse." He said pointing to a flashing red dot on the digitized screen.

"You know what to do team." Robin shouted as they all rushed to the garage. Robin was already revving his r-cycle, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven where in the t-car. Starfire had decided to fly overhead.

It was a short drive to the chemical warehouse. When they got there they were forced to cover through faces and mouths. "What's that horrible smell?" Beast Boy was doubled over, trying not to hurl.

"Formaldehyde" Robin answered. "They must store it here in large amounts. It shouldn't smell this bad though, its kept in air tight containers." They searched the entire outside of the metal hangar like building. There was nothing odd. All the doors were still locked, and Starfire had confirmed that the skylights on top hadn't been broken through.

"So then why did we get an alert?" Cyborg looked down at the radar that was inset in his cybernetic arm. "There's some one inside all right, how they got in I have no idea" The screen showed one red dot slowly moving about the inside.

"So there is some on in there? Could they have tunneled through?" Beast Boy asked, looking up at Cyborg.

"If they did, then it had to have taken them some time. Its solid concrete up to twelve feet below us." Cyborg said as he closed down the radar and replaced it with the neutral bio readout setting.

Robin was silent, Raven looked over at him and he shook his head. "I doubt it's the person we're looking for, but who ever it is, we're going in to say hello" He removed a foot long pipe from his belt and twisted it slightly. Both ends elongated evenly to form a Bo staff. He twirled it in his hand as he rushed forward, spinning his body full circle to gain momentum. He brought it down and shattered the chain look on the sliding door into three pieces. He pushed the door open and a wave of the horrible smell hit them like an invisible wall.

Beast boy bent over and opened his mouth. A disgusting gurgling sound came from his throat, followed by a splattering on the concrete. He wiped his mouth and opened his eyes. A mixture of yellow bile mixed with liquidized pink and white fluff is all he saw. The smell of his own vomit mixed with that of the chemical was more than he could bar. He bent over again, choking; a long stream of bile shot from his mouth and collided with the pool already on the concrete. The reflexive reponse to the smell and the pressure forced on his head forced him to passed out. He fell backward and hit the stone with a thud.

"I'll carry him." Cyborg said, stepping over to the unconscious changeling, trying not to look at the pool of bile and half digested food. He lifted him up and carried him cradled in his arms.

"Stay at the door incase something happens out here" Robin gestured with his head to the side of the building. Cyborg wasn't complaining this time. He would rather miss out on any action then have to walk through that smell.

Robin and the other made their way through rows and rows of crates, boxes, and strange solid steel drums. Robin still had his hand over his mouth, he found the small filter mask he always carried around, but decided not to wear it. It would not have been fair to the others if he did. "Lets split up, we're not covering any ground this way." They two nodded to him and they headed off in separate directions. Starfire glided down the row to the left, robin tacking the forward row, and Raven going right. Star fire kept her hand over her pace, pinching her nose and breathing through her mouth. She found several crates that had been broken into, but no sign of the person who did it. Robin was having just as much luck as Starfire, broken crates but not a soul to be found.

Raven was stalking down a row of the strange cylinders and a section of crates that looked as though they had been cannibalized. The sides of the wood boxes had been torn open and the insides had been removed with out any care going into it. Broken bottles of the preservative fluid were strewn across the warehouse floor with what looked to be _Human Limbs._ Raven's eyes widened with horror. Surgically removed arms, legs, hands, toes, and fingers lay in front of her. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not, but there was a sickening wet slapping sound coming from further in the darkness.

She pulled her robes up slightly and hovered above the ground as she moved forward. She would never say it to any one for as long as she lived, but right now she was scared beyond comprehension, her heart was beating so hard and her mouth was completely dry. Slowly, as she glided down the way, the shape of a human form crouched down and hunched over came into view. Raven really didn't know what to say, the person was acting strange. She could tell by the broad shoulder that it was a he, and he seemed to be eating something. His head shook and moved back and forth violently. She wasn't sure how to approach him the situation was too weird.

"Um…excuse me." She kicked herself for sounded so meek. "Hey! I don't know how you got in here, but if you don't come with us I know exactly how you're leaving" Again she kicked herself. Robin had always been the one to come up with the witty insults and threats. He stopped what ever it is he was doing and looked up. It dropped something it had in its hands and it rolled toward her. Her heart nearly stopped beating as she looked down at what it was. A half eaten human arm. She looked up at the cannibalistic figure, and then to its feet. She hadn't noticed it at first but he had been crouched in a pool of blood, leaning over and gnawing into the body of a dead security guard. _He's…he's _eating_ him_

The cannibal man stood up, he was still chewing on a chunk of flesh he had torn from the guards arm. Blood dripped from the sides of his mouth and down his chin onto his bare chest. Raven looked him up and down, from the top of his baldhead down to his toes. He was completely naked. She looked him over once more and noticed something attached to his right big toe. She nearly screamed when she came to the realization that it was a tag marking the name of the deceased. _Dead…this man—thing is dead._ It was looking directly at her with its white glazed over eyes. It slowly brought one foot forward and shuffled with the other. It let out a low ravenously hungry moan as it brought up its arms and began to slowly stalk toward her.

* * *

* * *

KK, I am now in a tangle. Technically, I'm not going for a zombie angle. Its been over used, but because of the story line I'm following, Zombiness (yes, I know that's not a word) works. I don't like how the first chapter turned out, review and tell me what you think I could do better. Also please note: "That's not Ravens attitude at all" will not be taken as a legitimate critiquing comment. She is deeply unsettled with losing her book, and those who are unsettled about any thing tend to act differently.

Also, I know that some of the other stories out there contain information that can only be found in the comics. If any one reading this has extensive knowledge about the going ons with in the comics, I would very much appreciate any information you can give me, no matter what it is. My email is you for sitting through this horrible chapter of mine. I know I could have done better and I promise to try to with the next one will be better.


End file.
